Lost in collaboration. Reading from discourses of business and museum leaderships.

Abstract

The publicly subsidised art field in Finland is entering a phase where privatisation and consumerism are inevitably changing its current logistics and equilibrium, thus research and knowledge about the functioning models of how private money can ethically enter the cultural sector are needed. In reflecting upon this, the thesis investigates current understandings and practices of collaboration between art and business, and the discourses existing around it. It does so by looking at existing practices and conventions of engaging with businesses in museums.

Cultural institutions (more specifically museums) seem to be struggling with pressures to consider performance indicators and the imposition of "managerial thinking" upon culture. Curators working there track their own performance to improve themselves, accepting managerial processes in a context not originally considered a business, but a social good.

As the term collaboration is often blurred or confused with sponsorship, I was interested to find and critically examine examples of engagement between institutions and companies that would not involve or be limited to monetary exchange, and resulted in stronger relations and reciprocal influences. In particular, I looked at the consequences that such engagement has for both parties, and how this is reflected in discourses from the art and business fields.

It seems quite obvious that collaborations work better when the two parties "click"; for that, negotiating the meaning of value in collaboration is important. What happens when it means "A", and when it means "B"? Do we stop being curators and become business "value-maximisers" when it is "B"? Or are there more nuances? And how to understand a possible operation in muddy water?

To understand my field of research and to follow my questions, the collaboration theory I’ve developed is connected to understandings of economic, social and cultural value, and theories of exchange. I conducted interviews with individuals that present curatorial positions and managerial visions for my primary research materials. These are examined using discourse analysis in dialogue with relevant literature and theories, complemented by personal observations.